Designs revealed for Norwalk's new Cranbury Elementary School

Richard Chumney

NORWALK — The new Cranbury Elementary School will include at least 21 classrooms and feature a separate cafeteria and gymnasium, according to design plans recently unveiled by city officials.

Plans for the new school were presented last week to the Norwalk Planning Commission, which unanimously voted to approve the $45 million construction project.

Alan Lo, the city’s building and facilities manager, said construction of the two-story building is scheduled to begin next spring. The school is slated to open in September 2023.

“The goal here is to build a new school while the existing school is still in operation,” Lo said. “It’s a very exciting project for the community and the city.”

The new school will replace the existing facility, which was originally built in 1959. For years, parents have complained that parts of the 62-year-old building have fallen into disrepair and that the community has outgrown its cramped classrooms and hallways.

The school system initially considered renovating the building and constructing an addition to house a new cafeteria. But after the cost estimates for the expansion exceeded expectations, district and city officials decided to replace the aging structure with a larger facility on the same site.

Lisa Yates, an architect with the Bridgeport-based firm Antinozzi Associates, which was hired by the city to design the new school, said the new building will be erected on athletic fields adjacent to the existing school.

The new building will be served by two vehicle drop-off loops. The first loop will be available to school buses and a second larger loop will be available to parents. Yates said the added drop-off locations will help prevent traffic from building up on Knowalot Lane during peak hours.

Once construction of the new building is complete, the old school will be demolished to make way for the vehicle drop-offs. The current designs call for a baseball field to be installed in the center of the larger loop.

The school will not be served by the city’s sewer system. Instead, an upgraded septic system will be installed along with the new building, according to Philip Katz, an engineer with the firm Stantec.

Yates said the building’s facade, which will feature floor-to-ceiling windows made up of entry-resistant glass, will incorporate stone, brick and wood to reflect the “park-like nature” of the surrounding area. The school site is located in a largely wooded area just south of Cranbury Park.

“It’s the kind of space where you like to be outside, so we like to have this feeling of bringing the outside in,” Yates said.

The building’s first floor will include a nearly 2,000-square-foot cafeteria, a 4,700-square-foot gymnasium, two music rooms, an art room and a learning commons. There will also be space for a preschool, and as well as classrooms for kindergartners, first graders and second graders.

The second floor, meanwhile, will include nine classrooms for third- fourth- and fifth-graders. There will also be six resource rooms to house various programs, including English as a second language classes and gifted and talented courses.

If extra classroom space is needed in the future, Yates said, one of the music rooms on the first floor and several resource rooms on the second floor could be converted into traditional classrooms.

“Because of the way this school is used, we think it’s important to have it be flexible and modular,” Yates said. “It allows them to have their needs be met during a particular year, or in 10 years if things change. It’s really just future proofing the building.”

West Haven looks to 'enhance the education experience' with new Washington School

Brian Zahn

WEST HAVEN — In 1909, Yale University graduate William Taft was inaugurated as the 27th president of the United States, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded and West Haven’s Washington Elementary School was built.

Although both the presidency and the NAACP continue to exist today uninterrupted, local officials said 112 years of continuous usage is too long for a school building that once was considered an innovator for its use of coal-fired hot water boilers.

“In the past 112 years, Washington School should have been rebuilt three times,” said Ken Carney, chairman of the city’s Building Oversight Committee.

Carney on Monday provided a concept plan for a new Washington Elementary School, to be built on the same site as the current school at 369 Washington Ave. The project, which officials estimate to cost around $38 million, would be supplemented by $24 million in state bonding through a school construction reimbursement program.

According to state Rep. Dorinda Borer, D-West Haven, chairwoman of the state legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee’s Bonding Subcommittee, rebuilding the K-4 school has been a top priority for her since being elected to the General Assembly.

“This building is over 100 years old, with no elevators and bathrooms in the basement,” she said.

As a result, the building raises serious accessibility concerns, she said.

Fourth-grade students on the verge of promotion to fifth grade said the issues go even deeper.

“This school is kind of old. The (air-conditioning) doesn’t really work,” said Jayce Peluso.

“Some of the lights are broken and there’s some cracks,” added Jose Rangel.

Jayce said that, before he moves onto middle school, his fondest memories of his education thus far are of his teachers. He said he believes they deserve a new building.

Carney said a new, two-story building would be built farther back on the property, allowing for a bus loop to ease the flow of traffic. Traffic on Washington Avenue is one of city Councilwoman Bridgette Hoskie’s biggest concerns.

“Hopefully it’s going to help with the traffic, because you can’t get by here. It’s borderline unsafe,” she said.

Carney said the city also will hire a traffic consultant to ensure that the area is safer for pedestrians and has improved traffic flow.

The building has been approved for about 42,000 square feet and would have air-conditioning, be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, feature energy-saving fixtures and wireless internet. Before breaking ground, Carney said the city’s building committee first must select an architect, which it is narrowing from nine applicants.

Although Carney said the current school is larger than 42,000 square feet, but much of the inerior space is wasted and serves no purpose.

Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro said the city long has had a vision of rebuilding its schools instead of making “piecemeal” fixes.

“If we want our kids to compete, they need the best and they deserve the best,” he said. “We need to do better for our kids. A lot of people love this building and it’s going to be difficult to see it torn down, but it just doesn’t meet the needs of our staff and students.”

According to Carney, the building will remain functional for about two years after the city breaks ground on the new project, before being torn down.

Washington Elementary would be the latest school to be newly constructed following completion of a new West Haven High School.

Board of Education Chairwoman Cebi Waterfield said the new Washington Elementary would support the city’s vision of schools as community centers — buildings that serve as “the anchor” for the local neighborhood.

Kim Kenney, president of the city’s PTA, said the new school ultimately would support the fostering of deeper relationships between school staff and the community.

“This is a huge undertaking and I’m so excited to see it become a reality,” she said.

Washington Elementary Principal Twana Shirden has served on the construction committee for the new building since its inception, although she will be leaving the district for a new job at the end of the school year.

“I think it’s phenomenal. The students and staff are deserving and it’s well overdue,” she said. “A modernized building will enhance the education experience.”

Cabinet secretaries launch roadshow to sell the Biden plan

Ashraf Khalil

WASHINGTON (AP) — Marty Walsh remembers what it was like when a Cabinet secretary would come to town.

“It really is a big deal. They give you the dates, and you just clear your schedule,” said Walsh, a former mayor of Boston.

He recalls 300 people packing into a room to hear Julián Castro, then Housing and Urban Development secretary. "He was speaking on behalf of President Obama and Vice President Biden, and people hung on every word.”

Now Walsh, as secretary of labor, is on the other side of the equation, crisscrossing the country on behalf of President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan. As the massive infrastructure package goes through torturous negotiations in Congress, Walsh and a handful of other Cabinet secretaries have launched an ambitious travel schedule to promote the plan and the larger Biden agenda.

“It’s clear the administration has decided to take their message on the road,” said Ravi Perry, head of the political science department at Howard University. “The amount of trips, how much they’ve traveled ... there really has been a shift.”

Starting around the beginning of May, Biden's Cabinet members have made dozens of TV appearances and trips around the country, promoting the Biden agenda with an ambitious roadshow.

“I don’t know that I can think of an equivalent to this kind of rollout,” said HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, who in recent weeks has traveled to Newark, New Jersey; Kansas City, Missouri; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. “We are an extension of the administration. We are carrying the president’s agenda.”

That agenda stands at a critical crossroads as the infrastructure package faces a unified bloc of Senate Republicans, who decry it as excessive and unnecessary. Meanwhile some Senate Democrats remain leery of using their slight numbers advantage to force the package through without some bipartisan support.

Last week, Biden called off negotiations with a group of Republican senators and announced he would be formulating a new approach. The bill is Biden's top legislative priority and its fate could prove critical to his ability to maintain momentum early in his administration. With simmering issues such as voting rights reform, police brutality, immigration and gun control on the agenda, Biden's ability to deliver on his proposals is being closely watched by both Republicans and the Democrats' own restless progressive wing.

The Cabinet outreach campaign is particularly striking in the context of the country's gradual emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic. Although restrictions on mass gatherings are being lifted all around the country, several Cabinet secretaries noted that the national mood is not quite ready for large political rallies.

“You’re not getting the crowds, of course," said Walsh, who misses the intimacy of working lunches without social distancing restrictions. “It really restricts what you can do. You want to be around people.”

Much of the traveling has been done by Biden's Jobs Cabinet: Walsh, Fudge, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Buttigieg, who said he was “itching to get on the road since Day One,” said the presence of a Cabinet secretary brings particular gravitas. More than perhaps any position in government, he said, Cabinet secretaries are a direct extension of the president and his policies.

“You represent the administration and the president, writ large,” said Buttigieg, who has traveled to North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. "It’s a way to let people know that they’re important.”

A former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg recalled, “It was a pretty big deal if a regional administrator for a federal agency came to town, much less a Cabinet secretary.”

The campaign is proceeding with active coordination from the White House. Fudge said her department plans her travel schedule, but the White House regularly makes requests for her to appear in certain places or arranges for her to team up with another secretary for a joint appearance. Biden announced the informal Jobs Cabinet grouping in April, telling reporters that the quintet would be asked “to take special responsibility to explain the plan to the American public."

Anita Dunn, senior adviser to Biden, said the Cabinet members had largely been confined to long-distance television interviews for the first few months of the administration.

“It’s all been virtual until quite recently,” she said.

Dunn described the Cabinet members as "accomplished people who represent the administration and allow us to increase our reach.”

It also helps that several of the secretaries are former mayors, like Buttigieg and Walsh, or former governors like Granholm and Raimondo, enabling them to find easy common ground with local officials and stakeholders.

“That's a huge advantage for the administration,” Dunn said.

The logistics and cost of planning a secretary's visit are also far less daunting than they would be for the president or vice president. Dunn said the secretaries travel on a mixture of government planes and commercial airlines, and Cabinet secretaries have their own security details, but not Secret Service protections. As a result, the administration can get the impact of a direct presidential emissary for far less cost and hassle.

In some cases the secretary's role is to rally sympathy and momentum; in others they seek to reassure nervous audiences in deeply Republican states that the Biden agenda won't leave them behind.

Granholm, speaking on the phone during a visit to West Virginia, said her primary goal on that trip was to reassure citizens of the coal mining-dependent state that Biden's clean energy plans won't destroy their economy. A former governor of Michigan, Granholm compared West Virginia to her home state when the auto industry started contracting.

“I get that fear and nervousness when a state’s whole identity and economy is wrapped around a sector that’s shrinking. I get when a community has been on its knees,” she said.

Her presence in West Virginia “means that the president of the United States deeply cares," Granholm said.

The approach represents a direct departure from the previous administration. Former President Donald Trump's Cabinet secretaries did their share of pre-pandemic speaking engagements, but Trump generally preferred to be his own messenger and promoter through Twitter, interviews with sympathetic media outlets and famously raucous rallies with himself as the centerpiece.

“It's a huge shift in how Cabinet members are being used by the president,” Perry said. “What we’re seeing here is a much more decentralized executive branch. In some ways, it’s a return to normalcy in terms of domestic diplomacy.”

City of Bristol, Board of Education holding beam signing ceremony for Arts Magnet School

BRISTOL – The City of Bristol and the Bristol Board of Education are inviting the Bristol community to come out for the Memorial Boulevard Intradistrict Arts Magnet School Beam Signing Ceremony Wednesday.